Cargo ship res­cues sailor in con­test

LON­DON — A cargo ship on Fri­day res­cued a Bri­tish sailor af­ter a violent storm ripped off her mast and flung her yacht end over end in the South­ern Ocean as she com­peted in a solo round-the­world race.

Bri­tish sailor Susie Goodall tweeted “ON THE SHIP!!!” soon af­ter the Hong Kong-reg­is­tered MV Tian Fu ar­rived at her lo­ca­tion. The cargo ves­sel had been trav­el­ing from China to Ar­gentina when it di­verted to reach her.

Race of­fi­cials have been in reg­u­lar ra­dio con­tact with the 29-year-old Goodall, who lost her mast 2,000 miles west of Cape Horn near the south­ern tip of South Amer­ica.

The Tian Fu found Goodall an hour be­fore day­light. In a mes­sage to race of­fi­cials at 4:15 a.m., she con­firmed that she had sighted the Tian Fu and that sea swells were up to 13 feet high.

That was only the begin­ning of Goodall’s trou­bles Fri­day. Her en­gine failed and could not be restarted, lim­it­ing her abil­ity to ma­neu­ver. With­out an en­gine, her stricken yacht, the DHL Starlight, had to drift with its sea an­chor be­fore the mas­ter of the MV Tian Fu could ma­neu­ver the 40,000 ton cargo ship along­side it.